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Why is China called the Sleeping giant?

I've had some growing interest about China recently. because there's been quite a few discussions that China is slowly becoming truly powerful. everything is made in China, they've millions of men and women working hard for little, and they have a standing army at practically 3,000,000 and a reserve army at almost 4 million.
People say that China is a sleeping giant, and when it awakes it will shake the globe. What's all that?
So why does people call it the Sleeping giant? Is it because that after the Han, Ming and Qing dynasties, China became quiet in both war and everything else?
I know for sure that during the Ming dynasties around the 15th-16th centuries China was the most powerful land in the world. They referred to as the Forbidden city the world's meeting point.
that's just my humble guess.
Could someone please give me a well thought-via explanation and hopefully (a correct) answer why China is called the Sleeping giant?

Well,geographically,China is literally a giant.But what makes it a sleeping giant is probably its capabillties which it never puts into action,like its Military forces.A "show of force" alone will have would be invadres to think twice.It may be sleeping but its tentacles are are active abroad (i mean chinese investors)but just like you its also my humble guess

The quote goes back to Napoleon who said "The giant sleeps, and let it, for should it wake the world will shake."
Basically he realised that China was a world power and was not trying to expand, trade or do anything else. He realised that this was a good thing for other powers.
People seem to forget that while in recent history China has been weak, for the previous 2000 years China has been the richest and most powerful nation on Earth.

Because of the China is the most powerful country in the world in Tang Dynasty, China's military, science and technology were leading at that time, but declined later. So China is called the Sleeping giant.

Put simply China did very little for around 500 years. It (they) was (were) too lazy (sleeping) and backward to bother to improve the country or themselves and fell many years behind the other countries that continued to develop.
The USA and other western countries have developed more in a little over 200 years than China has in 5000 years !
Many Chinese will blame this fact on the ''devastation'' brought upon them by ''foreign invaders'' but cannot explain how western countries (such as those in Europe) also devastated by invasions and wars, continued to develop.
From 1949 until 1976, under the leadership of their revered Chairman Mao, China did not progress at all, being effectively cut off from the rest of the world as he and his henchmen murdered and starved their people into subjugation.
After Mao's death, under the leadership of Chairman Deng Xiaoping they, after 5000 years, decided it was time to modernise and start to develop. This process began around the year 1979 and continues today. China is still playing ''catch up'' with the developed world.
So the long long period of China's economic inactivity has been likened to that of a giant (because of its physical and populations size) that was sleeping (inactive or too lazy) and is now waking and becoming productive for the first time in it's long history.
Think of how you sleep at night. You are inactive. When you awaken you begin to become active and productive. Just like China but without the excuses !